


Undaunted

by SociopathicArchangel



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: CASUALLY BUTCHERS CANON, F/M, Gen, don't mind me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9116692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: Or: how Moon Butterfly does not always live up to her title and how Toffee is more than just someone she pointed her wand to.





	

His dark stain of a presence in the castle is an anomaly. But then, what else is new? He’s always been an anomaly. Strange Toffee, weird Toffee, mewman-loving Toffee – can’t you see they’re our enemies? The suffocating force on the land that would only lead to their realm being crushed and crushed and crushed under the weight of their greed and ignorance and incompetency, and even after what can be crumpled up is nothing but a sad useless shell of its former glory, they will press further until there is nothing but dust.

Foolish Toffee. Dreaming Toffee.

Except Toffee isn’t foolish, and Toffee isn’t dreaming, not if he’s awake and doing something about what he feels must be changed. Toffee knows that if you believe that your only option is to go to war then you have already lost.

Toffee is strange, but Toffee is no fool.

Greed can be tempered, incompetency can be trained, ignorance can be corrected.

It just needs someone to do all of those things.

 

* * *

 

 

Moon Butterfly is the epitome of what royalty is. She is prim, proper, obedient, polite and she knows when to hold her tongue and when to look away. At least, at face value.

She also knows when to pretend she didn’t see anything wrong, even if she clearly did, and she knows when to shut her mouth when the liquid damnation at the tip of her tongue threatens to leak out.

She is perfectly polite to Toffee, but her eyes burn with something akin to condescension and disgust. Not unlike other stares Toffee has gotten over the years. But there’s something about the way she directs this stare to her fellow mewmans too – specifically those who belong in the King’s court. She curtsies and she laughs politely, but he can see it just sitting as a malicious light behind her eyes, and he wonders what it will take for the perfect porcelain doll Moon has crafted to break.

It is a curious thing.

But that is not what Toffee needs. He needs her equal contempt for everything that displeases her, no matter if they are mewman or monster. He needs her fair loathing, he needs her indiscriminate anger, bottled up as it may be.

There is potential there. Give him a year, or two, or three, and he’ll have her ready to choose her own path.

It’s a good thing his employment is indefinite.

* * *

 

He knows she dislikes him because he is something other (something that she has been trained to hate since her birth; conditioning, really, but it’s not like it’s not reversible, you just had to know what to do and the time to do it, and the years she has studied under him has softened that discrimination), because he doesn’t care that she is a princess, and because he doesn’t cut her slack and instead says, “Again,” every time she holds the sword wrong or notches the arrow just a few millimeters off or clumsily misses a step in her footing during a spell dance or just forgets that she still does need to read her spellbook even if she already has two instructors (Glossaryck gives Toffee a strange look sometimes, but they both have an understanding that neither of them are really trying to lead her down a path. Just trying to prepare her for when she has to choose it).

She dislikes him because he’s a total hardass, and that’s something he can live with.

“Again,” he says, watching Moon grit her teeth as she hefts the morningstar between her hands. She takes a step back to support her weight. The weapon nearly slips from her fingers, and he knows that she hasn’t slept well last night. Maybe she was out with Dirt again, or River.

But she isn’t complaining. One knight sets the target in front of her again, and then walks a respectable distance away.

Moon braces and then, careful not to put undue pressure on her spine, lifts. She moves her arms back and bends one knee while setting her weight on the other, the one behind her, a spring ready to uncoil with the force of a tiny explosion.

“Go.”

Moon pushes off, leaving dust in her wake, and in one kick is suddenly across the courtyard, lifting the morningstar, and with a war cry that sounds so much like raw hurt, betrayal and anger, smashes the weapon into the block of wood. It splits in half just in time to let Moon through before the force of her jump crashed her against it. She moves her arms so that the morningstar hits the ground and she uses the handle as a pole, vaulting her herself up in the air until her feet are skyward, then she bend them in a backflip and lifts the weapon again as she lands on her feet. It makes a dull thunk as she lets it fall to the ground once she gains her footing.

The eight-inch thick block of wood isn’t in neat halves, but it’s definitely obliterated. The parts of it that took the direct hit from the morningstar are in splinters, big and small pieces alike and in too many splints that Toffee thinks it’d take ten apogees before they could be counted. Even if the weapon missed, Moon’s velocity would have been enough to destroy it.

He can smell the pure anger from his place, and it’s not directed at him.

Across him, Moon is hunched in on herself, unprincess-like, a common sight during each one of their sessions, where he tests her patience with holding her temper and her tongue and her magic. But also infinitely tired, something he rarely sees, and something reserved for court meetings or overheard conversations during a ballroom party where the topic was about the crushing of the latest rebellion somewhere in the outskirts of the land where the people were clearly, clearly suffering.

He waves off the knights in dismissal. They bow in respect and make their way out of the courtyard in a clink-clink-clink of armor. Toffee doesn’t move. The clink-clink-clink fades into the distance.

He doesn’t move. Neither does Moon.

Then he takes one step and she crumples in on herself, and goes from infinitely tired to utterly broken. If Toffee’s steps get faster, there is nobody to watch.

He stops just within touching distance, but he doesn’t make any move to do so. He doesn’t even lift a hesitant arm. He just looks at her, vulnerable and broken, and respects her enough that he wouldn’t insult her with useless sympathy for something he doesn’t know about and trusts her to pick up her broken pieces and rebuild them stronger. If she doesn’t remember any of his fighting lessons then at least she’ll remember this one.

“You were right,” she says in a shaky breath after the silence. “You were right.”

I’m right about plenty of things, he doesn’t say. There’s a reason why _I’m_ training _you,_ he doesn’t say. You never listen to me, he doesn’t say.

Instead he says, “You’ll have to clarify, Princess.”

“About Dirt,” she says. It doesn’t sound like she’s admitting defeat. It just sounds like she’s hurt. “He was a traitor. A rebel.”

Not necessarily a traitor, he thinks. Just someone who had their loyalties in a completely different place.

He nods, even though she can’t see it, and lets the silence take over again.

Moon doesn’t let it. “Say something.”

He gives her a look he’s sure she can feel even without turning to him. “I won’t say I told you so.”

“It would be easier if you were smug about it.” She sniffs, ungraceful, and then straightens as she laughs, laughter then breaking into a hoarse sob.

She laughs and laughs until there are tears in her eyes. When she staggers backwards, Toffee is there to steady her by her shoulders. She laughs still.

When she quiets, her tears are still falling and her head is to the ground.

The sun is already setting in the horizon. The morningstar and the broken block of wood are both on the ground and Toffee doesn’t care. He gently shifts Moon so she understands it’s time to go back to the castle. “Come.”

She nods and turns, giving him a full view of her tear-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. The tracks that glazed over her diamond marks left the markings a little faded. He looks at the determined set in her jaw and doesn’t need her to speak to know that she doesn’t want to be humiliated in front of anyone else. He will not humiliate her, and she knows that and respects him for it. The others are petty and childish and will point and sneer.

He has one hand on her shoulder as he expertly leads them around the castle, weaving in and out, until they reach her room with not one person seeing them. Moon breathes easy when she lays a hand on the closed wooden doors and pushes, but then stops.

She turns to him and nods. A silent thank you. He nods back in acknowledgement.

They don’t speak of it ever again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you know why sorcerers never take on apprentices who simply want to learn magic as a passing fancy?”

Moon looks up from her homework – Toffee wasn’t the only one torturing her with coursework, after all, he was just the only one who was always around, Glossaryck coming second – and gives him a look that’s one part ‘duh’ and two parts intrigued. Her hand holding the pen slackens as she thinks.

“It’s insulting to their art,” she says, “And insulting to them. And someone who only wants to learn something as a passing fancy will learn nothing at all.”

Toffee turns away from the shelf of books he’s perusing and smiles at her. “Correct.”

Moon almost sneers at the way he makes it sound like she’s a child who got an answer to a tricky question and should be awarded with buttered corn.

“Focus is key to anything you want to achieve,” he says, “Energy is key to anything you want to change.”

Just like what he’s doing. Focus on the next ruler of Mewni, put energy into training her to see justice. Not to see that Monsters are right, no. Justice. Because dragging her to one side wouldn’t change anything other than that someone else was on top now. It’d still be the same cycle of death and oppression.

Moon thinks on it, sees the sense and nods.

This is why Toffee likes her. She doesn’t take any horsecrap, not without a decent inspection on it. She doesn’t care who the speaker is either. He’s seen her bite her tongue to stop a cheeky remark towards her uncle once, during another ball, and a few years after he’d started teaching her she’d actually let loose an arrow laced with a subtle insult at the same man.

The man was stupid enough that he’d only been very confused, and maybe he deserved it, but Moon’s mother had made a face at her daughter. Moon was completely smug. Toffee was surprised at himself for being proud.

Toffee pulls out a book from the shelf and when he puts it down in front of Moon, she raises an eyebrow. She’s sure this isn’t one of the books in the royal library and that Toffee just probably replaced the one he pulled out of the shelf with it to make it look like it was actually one of the books of the collection.

She opens it. And stares at the open page. She flips another and another and another and another. Her eyes go wider until she starts shaking, her hands too unsteady to flip another page. She can feel the raw power just sparking from her fingertips from touching the paper.

“W-what…”

This is too much to trust her with, she knows. Too much to give to her, knowledge like this and yet here Toffee is.

“Which is why when you cast spells, Princess, you have to mean it. It will be a half-hearted attempt, otherwise,” he says, “Do not point your wand at anything you do not wish to affect.”

He is smiling at her, still. Toffee rarely smiles at her. He does it to mock her of her dislike of the sharp monster teeth, so unlike her blunt own, but that doesn’t bother her right now. What bothers her is the impossible book in front of her and the genuine smile on her mentor’s face.

The book is small. Maybe just an eighth of her own spellbook, the ginormous thing that’s been handed down from generation to generation in her family. It’s about as thick as half of the length of her index finger. And inside the pages are spells Moon’s never heard of before, lessons on alchemy, notes on soul magic, notes on harvesting magic, nearly _everything_ and then some, written in Toffee’s clean, neat script.

“W-where did you get this?” she asks, motioning to the open book, and she doesn’t mean the bound volume itself, “All of this, where did you…”

“I’m a scholar, my dear,” Toffee says, “I’m a warrior as well, but a scholar at heart. I read, I study, I analyze, I understand, I execute.”

“You plan,” Moon says, still shaking, and eyes filled with something that isn’t quite fear but isn’t quite awe, “You plan too.”

“Yes,” Toffee says, “Otherwise we’d never get anything done.”

“What are you trying to do?” Moon asks. Toffee’s almost disappointed to see her wariness from her internalized discrimination rise up, but it’s fighting with her desire to trust her mentor. He almost laughs. She _trusts_ him.

He nearly chokes on air when he realizes that, upon closer inspection, he trusts her too.

“I’m trying to teach you, Princess,” he says. He sees the relief in her eyes when she sees his honesty. Toffee isn’t one for lying, really. He’s better than that. “Whatever you do with that teaching is up to you. I simply hope you will make the right choice.”

“And what is the right choice?”

“That’s something you will know when you see it,” he says, “I am not being cryptic. It’s just something that you will have to learn without it being spoonfed to you. Steering you, influencing you, would create bias, and that would be unfair, wouldn’t it?” He drops the hint unashamedly. “No, this is something I can only prepare you for, and when the fork in the road is there, it is your choice to make.”

“And if I make the wrong choice?” she challenges. _Will you be there to teach me where to go?_

 _No._ “Then I would be very, very disappointed.” _And most likely very dead._ “But it’s not as if you value my disappointment, yes?”

Moon actually flinches. Toffee doesn’t call her out on it. There is a reason why Moon is only careless around him, and that mutual respect serves them both.

He nods towards the book. “It is yours, but do be careful not to show it to other people. They might have…ideas.”

Moon nods. Toffee knows she’s thinking about the latest news from the war. Sixteen rebel camps extinguished. One of them was a refugee camp. Hundreds of children dead.

“How do I know which path to take?” she asks, “Which one is ridden with spikes and which one isn’t?”

Toffee chuckles, a sound so unfamiliar it startles Moon, and shakes his head. “Princess,” he says, “The road to damnation isn’t ridden with spikes.”

“What is it made of, then?”

An illusion of superiority and the flawed nature of the living.

But he doesn’t say that.

 

* * *

 

 

Moon’s spellbook isn’t lacking. No, quite the opposite. It’s got a lot of things, but they’re not very practical. Time travel, the secrets to dark power, how to change your hairstyle, how to change your hair color. It’s nice and all, but it’s all novelty spells.

Toffee’s book is all about everything Moon can use. Healing spells. Binding spells. Curse spells. How to forge new spells. How to drain an opponent of magic. How to give someone magic.

Moon reads and reads and reads until Toffee gives her the stinkeye when she can’t hold a sword right during one of their sessions. The guards get dismissed and then Moon drops the sword as soon as they’re out of earshot. She lists forward and Toffee – who was several meters across the courtyard – is suddenly in front of her with his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from completely becoming one with the ground.

If she had eaten anything, she would have giggled from the high. She hadn’t. And was just really tired.

“Princess.”

“I was up reading,” she says, feeling childish with the sudden need to defend herself.

“You’re already making bad choices,” he says.

Moon chortles, throwing her head back. Toffee stands up – oh so _that’s_ why he was at eye level, he was _kneeling –_ and straightens Moon along with him.

“Get some sleep,” he says, “And try not to touch a single book tonight.”

Moon giggles like an idiot and is too sleep-deprived to reign it in.

She doesn’t even make any disapproving faces when Toffee sneaks them into her room again, and she actually squeezes his hand in thanks for his consideration.

 

* * *

 

 

Moon makes her own copies and makes sure to hide them under spell and key, after which she returns the book to Toffee. He looks pleased with her decision – she just _knows_ that he knows about the extra copies – and then sets the book on fire.

Which. Typical Toffee, really.

“You could have – ”

“Given it to you, yes, but if you ever make the wrong choices, I would rather avoid the fallout, dear.”

Of course.

She can respect that.

He makes a motion for her to take a step forward and brandish her wand at the target. It’s an arrow target, and the bow and quiver lay somewhere behind them, much to the sure confusion of the guards.

“Now show me how far off you are.”

Moon nods, turns and raises her wand.

Focus. Energy. Do not point your wand at anything you do not wish to affect.

 

* * *

 

 

The royal library is filled with more than history books. _Biased_ history books, Toffee murmurs under his breath although Moon can clearly hear it, and it does Moon well to fill up the silence of the castle with knowledge rather than news of the bloody war outside. Everyone in the castle is doing a good job of pretending it doesn’t exist. Moon figures she can do that too.

Toffee doesn’t. He’s constantly aware. And he’s sure that Moon knows exactly what he’s teaching her for, what her choice will be, and truth be told he’s not all that excited to see the conclusion of his actions.

Whatever reckoning will come will only result in his demise, he is sure. Should Moon choose to end the war, he will be pointed as a traitor and brainwasher of the princess by the royal court. Should Moon choose to continue it, he will be executed as a monster who has no place in the kingdom.

Toffee prefers a good meal and a decent bed, but nobody gets what they want all the time. He’s had to fight tooth and claw for the position of teacher in the castle, when the rest of the few monsters who were even allowed in the vicinity of royalty were the lowest of slaves.

He wonders if Moon would fight to let him keep his place, should he be threatened to be removed. The King and Queen are mercurial, and there’s always whispers flying around the castle. Mistakes by mewman slaves pointed to monster slaves. Gossips of planned assassinations. It wouldn’t be surprising.

He makes a noise of irritation when he checks and yet again, the answer is that he trusts her to. He thinks she trusts him, but there are a few things he’s been wrong with. If this is one of them, he’s not willing to take the chance.

Trust is a luxury afforded to few, and it horrifies him that he trusts his student.

So it all the more terrifies him when he’s standing with a sword, red with the blood of another monster, with Moon behind him, eyes wide and body still in shock. Her wand is in her hands. She is not shaking. She is still registering what has just happened.

In fact, with the adrenaline wearing off, it’s just getting back to him. One moment, he was escorting the princess to the dining room because there was a family party today, and the servants were coming in, monsters and mewmans alike, bringing in food. The King lifted a goblet and issued a toast, which everyone cheerfully followed, except for Moon who looked painfully bored and was starting to give Toffee looks through the reflection of her golden plate.

The food was being distributed as the servants walked around when suddenly, one of the monster servants slipped a dagger from his pocket and lunged at Moon with a war cry, aiming for the belt that her wand was strapped to. The princess had stilled in panic for a moment before training kicked in and she gripped the arm rests of her chair and pushed her legs off the floor so that they were tucked close to her chest and then redirected the soles of her foot to the monster’s face. They hit it with a solid crack. The dagger was still making its way towards her in a swipe even as the monster flew back.

Toffee grabbed the back of Moon’s chair and pulled back before the blade could make contact.

Then there was a lot of shouting, and the monster had gotten back up and attacked again and luckily Moon was out of her chair, wand out. The monster lunged and Toffee fought, and Moon blindsided the attacker, and when the monster switched his attention to Moon, Toffee blindsided him. The monster was incensed, and he continuously tried to get at the princess, but aimed for the hand that held the wand instead of her person.

There were a lot of blasts from Moon’s wand, while Toffee fought with his bare hands, until the monster had gotten enough and yelled something vile and didn’t go for Moon’s wand, but instead lunged with all of the intent to kill Moon.

Something snapped. Toffee took three minutes to register it came from inside him, and by that time, he’d already grabbed a sword from a knight, bolted to where Moon was and cut off the arm of the offending monster in one clean swing.

Blood sprayed all over his suit and face. Behind him, he heard Moon’s gasp drown out the splatters of the monster’s blood all over herself.

He comes back to the present to the sound of a monster still screaming as he is dragged away by the guards and to the urgent grip on his arm, with Moon hissing, “Toffee? _Toffee!”_

Toffee blinks and takes in a shuddering breath. He looks down to see Moon’s wand hovering over his hand, which looks like it’d hurt itself from gripping the sword too tight.

He releases it and his bones painfully unclick. The blade makes a noise as it scrapes the floor.

“Are you unhurt?” he asks.

Moon mutters a slight, “Fuckall,” and Toffee’s too shaken to reprimand her. “I am, yes.” She looks like she wants to hit him for having to ask that when he was the one who nearly killed someone.

Toffee nods and then turns to her fully so that he can see for himself that she is untouched. There is blood on her face and dress, and it’s still fresh, but otherwise, she is fine.

Toffee decides he never wants to see her with blood on her face again.

“Good,” he says. Then he politely bows to the rest of the people in the room and walks out, calmly. Moon isn’t having any of his bullshit and once he’s several paces down the hallway, he hears her say, “Excuse me,” and runs after him.

“Toffee!” she calls out, and it’s unnerving because outside of ‘student’, ‘teacher’ and condescending pet names, they don’t call each other their first names. Even ‘princess’ was a mockery of a title when it came from Toffee.

He turns towards a balcony instead, one overlooking the empty gardens and one fully illuminated by the moon.

Moon is relieved by his choice of venue and slows down her run, walking to the balcony. In her hand, the wand is still pulsing.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

“I am unhurt,” he says.

Moon looks like she would spit acid. On him. And then maybe slap him around a little. “I am not referring to a physical injury.”

“I am unhurt.”

She _kicks his leg._ It’s so undignified Toffee lets out a squawk.

“You sliced a monster’s arm off,” Moon says through gritted teeth, “We both know you hate doing that.”

“I am teaching you for a reason.”

“You teach me to defend myself and to know that sometimes what seems right isn’t always right, you don’t teach me that you have to enjoy bloodshed,” Moon nearly yells, and really, this is a first time for both of them, and Toffee’s entitled to a little staggering. “I know the fucking difference.”

“Language.”

She makes a rude gesture.

Toffee chuckles dryly.

“I am glad that you at least pay attention to our lessons,” he says, and it’s Moon’s turn to laugh.

“Yes,” she says, “It’s a waste of time if I don’t.”

He hums, approving.

“I didn’t really think I would have to use it, though.”

“In this time of war, Moon, you never know what you have to use,” Toffee says.

Moon nods. Swallows thickly.

“Yes,” she says, shaky.

 

* * *

 

 

It really comes as no surprise when, a few months later, all of the monsters are fired from the castle.

Toffee is not excluded. The one time discrimination is somewhat indiscriminate. Funny.

Moon doesn’t knock as she opens the door to his quarters as he is packing up his things.

“That is rude, you well know,” he says, not turning towards her as he decides the importance of two paperweights. One is of a royal insignia, which would be insulting if he didn’t take it and the other is something he actually likes.

“I do,” Moon says, “It wouldn’t be a conversation between us if one didn’t at least get insulted offhandedly.”

“You’re being rather sweet today.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Moon says, although a smirk is crawling up her face. Toffee smiles too, and gives the effort of glancing at her.

“When are you going?” Moon asks.

“Today.”

She sucks in a breath.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“They said tomorrow.”

“Who told you?”

“Father.”

Toffee pauses. “Ah.”

Moon doesn’t take it as an insult. She knows better. “Yes.”

“Then it is a good thing you visited,” Toffee says. He chooses the paperweight he likes instead and puts it into a box. Then he moves to the bookshelves. After a minute, he beckons Moon over.

Moon gives him a confused look but moves to stand beside him anyway.

“Do you see any books you would like to keep?”

Moon’s eyebrows climb like they’re having a contest before she scans the titles on the shelves. A few novels she’d never even heard of but looked interesting and a few untitled spines that looked like they were journals.

“Are those spellbooks?” she asks, “Yours?”

“Yes.”

Moon doesn’t ask where he got them. “I’d like those,” she says, “And a few of these novels.”

“Pick out the ones you want,” Toffee says, “I’ll take the rest.”

“You are fine with this?”

“Where I go, there will be no room for luxury,” he says, “I might as well make sure that these books have a good place to go.”

Moon frowns. But doesn’t say anything more. She starts taking down the volumes.

“The next time I see you,” she says when Toffee’s packed up all his boxes and Moon’s new books are in her arms, “Be in one piece, yes?”

Toffee blinks at her, surprised. Then he laughs, light and true, and it doesn’t shock Moon anymore. It just makes her want to cry. “I’ll try,” Toffee says. He stands straight and puts his hands behind him, walking towards Moon like he’s still her teacher, air of authority around him.

“The next time I see you,” he says, “I hope it’s not on the opposite side of the battlefield.”


End file.
